


This Old Homestead

by BaggerHeda



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Gen, Nicole fixed the banister, a little fun DIY home repair, because lesbians and power tools is a thing, of course, who fixed the banister
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 02:49:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13044948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BaggerHeda/pseuds/BaggerHeda
Summary: “Waverly,” said Nicole, “you can’t just leave it like that.”Nicole knew a hazard when she saw one.*****After the Dolls-Lucado fight busted up plenty around the homestead, Nicole thinks they shouldn't put off fixing the stair banister any longer. And she knows her way around the power tools.





	This Old Homestead

“Waverly,” said Nicole, “you can’t just leave it like that. It’s kinda dangerous.” She nodded at the stairs, with the broken banister. It had been that way ever since Lucado and Dolls had fought through the bottom floor of the homestead, busting everything along the way. Someone (actually, Nicole was pretty sure it was Waverly) had strung some scrap cloth, or flags or banners or something, tied into a sort of rough rope, across the gap. It served as a visual marker, but it wouldn’t do diddly for actually preventing an accidental slip off the edge of the treads, and Nicole knew a hazard when she saw one.

“I know,” said Waverly, “but jeez, when have we had time? Besides, I’m not really sure how to tackle that one.”

Nicole couldn’t disagree about the lack of time, the harried craziness before Mictian’s defeat still fresh in her mind. Still, most of the other small damage had already been repaired. And Nicole had found the slug that had been fired off indoors, mainly to make sure it hadn’t pierced the roof. It had lodged itself in a crossbeam instead. Nicole had dug it out with her pocketknife and patched the hole left behind.

“I would think that Dolls would help you fix it,” said Nicole.

“Dolls?” scoffed Waverly, lightly. “Dolls is good at a whole lot of stuff, but, home repair … not so much.”

“You could hire someone to do it. _He_ should hire someone for you.” That seemed fair, to Nicole’s mind, since he’d broken the damn thing in the first place. She stood, studying the extent of the damage. She had originally thought that the rail had cracked and was a total loss, but it wasn’t as bad as that, just loose at the newel post and that could easily be shimmed. A number of spindles were missing or damaged, but they were square rather than lathed and so would be easy to match, maybe just needed to be planed to size. Couple hours work, tops.

Waverly cleared her throat. “We, um. We really don’t like to let people onto Earp land.”

Nicole shot Waverly a startled look, then dropped her eyes. Just when she thought she was getting things figured out, Waverly would remind her that she lived in a world that played by different rules. No strangers at the homestead? Now that she thought about it … yeah, could be it made a little sense, even. Waverly had tried once, with that engagement party for Stephanie Jones, and look how _that_ had turned out.

“We’ll get around to it. I just don’t know when, with … everything,” Waverly sighed. Because, Nicole reminded herself, _everything_ had recently gotten a lot more complicated.

“I’ll do it,” Nicole decided.

“You know how to do that?” Waverly squeaked out, which earned her The Look from Nicole.

“Of course, it’s not rocket science. Do you have a tape measure handy? Let’s measure the hell out of this to make sure we get the right materials.” So Waverly fetched a tape measure, and paper and pencil, and eagerly took notes as Nicole called out numbers.

*****

Nicole took her list to the Purgatory hardware store, to see what was available and what would require a trip to the big city. As it turned out, the store could special-order everything they needed for a fair price, and could have it there in three days.

Dolls paid for everything (thus satisfying Nicole’s sense of honour about it) and he also hauled the materials to the homestead, so everything was ready and waiting by the time Nicole’s next day off rolled around. She got up early, arriving at the homestead with all the necessary tools, and was greeted by Waverly extending a hot cup of coffee to her on the front porch and a comment that she looked hella sexy in a toolbelt. To her surprise, Doc was there, too.

“We’re ready to work,” chirped Waverly. “Doc said he wanted to help.” But when she saw Nicole hauling out the mitre saw, she waited only until it was safely set down before dragging Nicole to one side and hissing in her ear, “For the love of god, please don’t let Doc near any power tools. He’s handy enough but he doesn’t have the concept.”

“Is he teachable?” asked Nicole.

“Do you want to be responsible if he cuts off his fingers? Please,” said Waverly, “that saw just terrifies me.”

“Okay,” said Nicole, “I’ll find something else for him to do.”

“You’re not allowed to cut off your fingers either. I like them how they are,” added Waverly, with the world’s most adorable leer.

*****

Doc, of course, had other ideas.

“Miss Haught, I would like to request that you teach me the use of this equipment,” he said, indicating the saw. His mustache bristled with the width of his most charming smile. Nicole thought fast, trying to come up with the best way to deflect without offense. She decided to go with blunt honesty.

“Well, Henry, not the mitre saw. It’s way too easy to seriously hurt yourself if you haven’t used one before. For safety reasons, I’m the only one allowed to touch this saw on this worksite. Waverly can’t use it either.” Nicole laid down her rules in what she hoped was a fair and firm voice.

Doc’s face fell.

Nicole tried to salvage a bit of his pride. “Do you know how to use a power drill?”

Doc shook his head no, but added, “I shall endeavour to learn it properly, if you are willing to teach me.”

In a flash of inspiration, Nicole thought of a busywork project that would keep Doc occupied and out of the way for long enough to get most of work done. And it would only cost her a couple of pieces of extra scrap lumber she’d had the foresight to order. “Okay, Henry. First, I want you to get a couple of two by fours out of that pile over there, about eight feet each. Make sure they’re pretty straight, not bent or bowed.”

Doc looked puzzled. “Two by four?”

Nicole sighed. It was going to be one of those days.

*****

After quickly explaining the concept of dimensional lumber to Doc and sending him off, Nicole had time to finished setting up her work area for the saw, and was measuring to make her first cuts. Doc came back with the requested materials, ready for his next instruction. She carefully set aside her angle scribe, grabbed the old DeWalt cordless drill (the one she didn’t care about so much) and got Doc set up off to one side.

“See this? This is a spade bit. A seven-eighths spade bit, to be exact,” she told him, letting him look at it before she mounted it in the drill and tightened the chuck. “I want you to drill a series of sockets along the length of these boards, for a different project I’m working on. On one, uh,” she paused, making some quick calculations in her head. “They need to be spaced exactly three inches apart. On the other, four. And they need to be dead center.”

Doc nodded solemnly.

Nicole grabbed up a pencil and a tape measure. “So let me show you how to mark it.” She extended the tape, and drew her first line three inches from the end of the beam. “Make a mark at three, then six, then nine, et cetera,” as she did so, “and do that all the way down. Okay? And on the other board you mark four, eight, twelve, and so on. Doesn’t have to be a big mark but it needs to be accurate.”

“In that case, I shall strive for as much accuracy as possible,” said Doc in his oddly formal way, which made Nicole crack a smile.

“Right,” she said. “And once you’ve done that, find the center line on each of those and mark that.” She laid the tape shortwise across the beam, demonstrating. “The actual width is three and a half,” she pointed, “so the center line is at one and three quarters,” and she made a mark. “Again, be accurate. That little cross is going to tell you exactly where you need to drill in the next step.” She handed the tape measure and pencil to Doc, saying, “You got that, Henry?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

She grinned at him. “Have at it.”

*****

Her diversionary tactic worked a charm. Doc laboured over his measurements, working at a snail’s pace, making his marks with all the concentrated studiousness of a first grader learning to write. Nicole also caught him as he extended and retracted the tape measure for a full five minutes, apparently fascinated by how it worked, and it was all she could do to stifle her laugh.

It gave her time to make all her angled cuts. Each spindle (she explained to Waverly that they were also called ‘balusters’ and Waverly wanted to know the etymology of the different words, which made Nicole laugh and say she wasn’t a linguist, she just knew how to order parts) needed to be cut at a precise angle. Nicole made a test cut on a piece of scrap lumber, took it inside to check, made a slight adjustment and a second test cut, and now the angle was perfect. The mitre was locked and ready, now she quickly cut the required pieces to the lengths she and Waverly had jotted down.

Waverly had finished sanding away any rough areas and old paint on the stair treads and the underside of the handrail; they’d lucked out and hadn’t needed to do much prep work at all. The homestead obviously predated modern construction techniques and building codes; the vertical spindles weren’t secured by pin dowels or mortise and tenon work, merely toenailed into the treads and rail, which was why they’d broken away so easily in the first place. It actually made the replacement work a breeze.

Doc wandered inside, his task completed, right around when she and Waverly had carried the cut pieces inside and set them in order on the stairs, getting ready to dryfit everything. Nicole noted the obvious interest in his eyes, tracking what they were doing, and thought that she saw understanding there. He obviously wasn’t bad at this sort of construction work, just unfamiliar with modern tools.

“Ready for a little break, Henry?” she said brightly. “I’m sure Waverly could make us some more coffee if we ask nicely.”

“That sounds like a most splendid idea,” he agreed with a grin.

*****

The work had been going fast, so they had plenty of time to sit on the front porch enjoying their coffee for a while, chatting about nothing in particular. Then Nicole explained the next steps.

“Wave, we’re gonna dry fit the spindles in place. There are two on each stair, a short one in front and a long one in back. We need to make sure they’re cut to the right lengths.”

“Okay,” Waverly said.

Nicole smiled. “Once the dry fit is good, that’s when the gluing and nailing starts.” Turning to Doc, she said, “And Henry, you are going to learn the proper use of a hand drill. Are you ready?”

Setting aside his cup and standing along with Nicole, Doc intoned, “Indeed I am, Miss Haught. Indeed I am.” They walked back to his work area.

Nicole quickly looked over the work Doc had done, satisfied with the results. She picked up the drill, checking that the battery was seated, and explained, “Now, we’re going to make a hole at each place you made a mark. Two things. One, don’t go all the way through, stop when you get to an inch deep. That means here,” she pointed to the shoulder of the spade bit, “on the bit. Two, keep the drill as straight up and down as possible, don’t let it lean or wobble to the side. Okay?”

“All right,” said Doc.

“So, like this. Set the point of the bit here, where the lines cross,” said Nicole, “and kind of dent the wood to get started. Then start the drill slow. The harder you squeeze the trigger, the faster the speed,” she added, belatedly realizing Doc might not even know that part. He just nodded, impassive. She continued, “You don’t need to put much weight behind it at all, that’ll just make you go crooked. Be gentle. Let the tool do all the work. Like this.” And she neatly drilled the first hole. “Ready to try?”

“Yes, ma’am, I am” he said, and Nicole handed over the drill.

His first attempt, under Nicole’s scrutiny, wasn’t entirely awful, and his eyes lit up like a child with a new toy. Nicole smiled to herself; she’d guessed well, giving him this little project. She left him with a few more words. “Not bad. Just keep doing that. Go slow, and if you mess one up it’s not the end of the world, but try to be as accurate as possible. Move the sawhorses when you need to, to keep the work stable. And oh yeah, don’t drill into my sawhorses and screw ‘em up. Have fun.” As she walked away, she tossed back over her shoulder, “Wear your safety glasses, Henry.”

“I did not see you wearing yours, Miss Haught,” he called back, and Nicole laughed.

*****

Waverly had gotten the spindles standing in place by the time Nicole got back inside the homestead. “Good job, Waves. How does everything look?” Nicole eyeballed the work; the spacing looked good and it was visually to plumb. Not bad for a quick patch-up job.

“I hope I did it right, but it looks fine to me,” said Waverly.

“Yup,” agreed Nicole. “Now for the fun part. I don’t have a nail gun so we get to do this old-school with a hammer and nails.” She had brought over a small bottle of wood glue from the tool box, which she handed over to Waverly. “You are nominated as Queen of Glue. We need a thin coat on the top and bottom of the spindles, one at a time, and then we can nail it into place at the top, make sure it’s sitting straight, and then let the glue set up a little before nailing it in at the bottom.” She started removing the fitted spindles and setting them aside in their specific order.

“Okay. Ready when you are,” said Waverly.

“Work from the bottom up. Once we get the first one in, I cut some spacers to help us keep ‘em even,” said Nicole, handing the first spindle over to Waverly.

After the first glue attempt ( _oh baby that’s way too much,_ Nicole murmured, but she had a rag handy to wipe off all the extra) Waverly got the hang of glueing the spindles and holding them steady while Nicole carefully drove a single nail to hold it to the rail, tacking it in place. The final one was the trickiest, with barely enough room to swing a hammer, but Nicole managed to get it nailed in with what felt like a thousand tiny taps.

“Okay, while the glue is still tacky, we check our work. Take a step back. Are any of ‘em crooked, out of vertical? Now is the time to fix anything.” Nicole showed Waverly how to check with a plumb line instead of just a visual inspection. They worked quickly, making a couple of minor corrections, Nicole gently tapping the wood into place with a rubber mallet. Once they were satisfied, they made rapid work of nailing the pieces down, Nicole showing Waverly how to use a scrap piece as a jig to keep the wood from moving out of place while it was being fastened, how to sink the finish nails with a punch and patch the small hole with a bit of wood putty. Before they knew it, the work was all done except for the cleanup. Nicole said it’d be ready for paint by tomorrow, after the glue finished drying.

Waverly looked impressed. “You’re pretty good at this, you know,” she said.

“No biggie,” said Nicole, with a little head dip.

“Hush up and let me appreciate you.”

*****

Nicole and Waverly came outside to find Doc admiring his finished handywork. Waverly, curious, asked, “Now what was he making? Is this for some other part of the stairs?”

“No, this is for an idea I had about a backyard climbing tree. You cut a few dowels that are the size of those holes, and climb up and down using those for moveable handholds,” explained Nicole.

“Oh neat, like that ninja show on tv!” exclaimed Waverly. “That’s cool.”

“It’ll be cool if I can make it work, but this was a big help, Henry. Thank you. You did a very nice job,” Nicole said, nodding his way.

Doc tipped his hat, saying, “I thank you for the instructions regarding this,” he waved the drill around before setting it down carefully, then spoke the words as if they were a foreign language, _“power tool.”_

They said their goodbyes, and after Doc had left, and Nicole and Waverly were sitting on the front porch, Waverly leaned into Nicole and muttered, “That was smart, having Doc work on your thing for the climbing.”

“I made it up on the spot,” Nicole laughed. “Yeah, no way in hell was I going to let him touch that saw today.”

**Author's Note:**

> I love these characters so much.
> 
> But, yeah, I am kind of surprised I wrote a G-rated little story, too. It's set after 2x07, the last time we saw the broken banister, and certainly before the big fight between our sweethearts. Hope you enjoy it! Please leave a comment or kudo.


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